Survey on the Irish Higher Education Sector 2019
Survey shows the Irish higher education sector with many strengths but scepticism about institutional capacity and government ambition.
Earlier this year 343 people in senior positions in Irish higher education and stakeholder groups were invited by Prospectus and BH Associates to complete a survey on the sector. Today we are publishing the results of our survey.
The survey indicates support for key strategic objectives for the sector, such as engagement with the skills agenda, cross institutional collaboration and the development of technological universities. There is also strong support for a bigger role for private providers, for alignment of further and higher education and for a better balancing of the research and teaching and learning missions. Funding is identified as a key weakness and regulation is regarded as unnecessarily intrusive. A lack of confidence in governance and management capacity in the sector is uncomfortably high.
A broad conclusion from the survey is that the higher education and research sector is in a strong position to continue its support for Irish society and economy but it, in turn, needs support in terms of funding and reform of governance and management systems and structures.
Key findings from the survey are –
· Key strategic objectives for higher education such as engagement with enterprise, institutional collaboration and technological universities are well supported.
· There is a high level of scepticism about the government’s ambition that Ireland will provide the best education and training system in Europe over the next decade. Less than one third (31%) of respondents agree that national higher education policy supports the system achieving outcomes that are world-leading and only one third agree that Irish institutions are succeeding in attracting world-class academics.
· There is strong support for alignment of further and higher education and for a better balancing of research and teaching and learning in the higher education institutions (HEI).
· 92% of responses indicate that HEIs should provide more thought leadership to Irish society – an important finding at a time when our society, in common with others across the world, is challenged by a wide range of social, economic and political issues.
· The contribution of private providers of higher education gets a high level of endorsement, but national policy is seen not to be supportive.
· Regulation of the sector is seen as unnecessarily intrusive. Twice as many think that the system of regulation exercised by the Department of Education and Skills and the Higher Education Authority is not appropriate as those who think it is approrpiate. 87% believe that the performance of higher education institutions is negatively impacted by public sector constraints (e.g. pay, control of staff numbers etc).
· The survey indicates a lack of confidence in governance and management capacity in the sector. A third of respondents think that the HEIs do not have clearly allocated responsibilities for decision-making at governance and management levels. The same holds for views on the extent to which management processes such as strategic planning, risk assessment and performance management have been successfully implemented and embedded by institutions. Only 27.5% are happy with the quality of financial management. Only 22% of respondents agree in general that the management capability within Irish institutions is appropriate to the standards required to meet current management challenges and responsibilities.
· 57% are of the view that reform of institutional academic and administration structures is essential in enabling the higher education system to achieve world leading status – only 14% see no need for reform
· There is a high level of confidence in the quality assurance processes in the institutions and in the quality and relevance of the skills of graduates, but innovation in the sector is seen as weak.
· There is overwhelming agreement on the inadequacy of funding for higher education and the funding of research.